It's bad enough worrying about losing your life-enabling smartphone connection due to a battery mismanagement crisis—but what happens when your car goes flat? A new wave of mobile car chargers could stop that nightmare scenario from unfolding.

Researchers at Mitsubishi's test labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, think the answer could be a network of movable charging stations. A central database would compile power usage and battery capacity records from electric vehicles, then use this to locate the places where cars find themselves in most need of an extra charge. And that's where the stations go.

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These mobile power stations would require charging themselves, but they'd do theirs overnight when no one's about—also helping balance the future power loads the new wave of electric cars will bring. [New Scientist]